By train: every hour from Vienna South station; journey time 35 mins.CarnuntumSignificant Roman ruins extend across the towns of Petronell and Bad Deutsch Altenburg. Carnuntum was once the most important town north of the Alps. The archaeological park includes a large amphitheatre, temples and ruined public baths.By car: take A4 in direction of Budapest and follow the B9 from the Fischamend exit to Petronell; journey time approx 45 mins. By train: every hour from Vienna South station to Petronell-Carnuntum; journey time 55 mins.Cresta Holidays (0870 161 0900) has three nights at the Mercure Wien City Hotel from £353 per person, including flights. Hertz (0870 848 4848; www.hertz.co.uk) has three days' car hire from £187.. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is the preserved steam line that conforms most closely to the rural branch line idyll depicted in stories such as The Railway Children or The Titfield Thunderbolt, and the northern terminus at Grosmont in the Esk valley is the prettiest of all the stops. When there are no trains in the station you hear only the sussuration of the Esk, or the occasional dinging of a bell in the signal box.

It is strange to discover in this somnolent context such a gritty thing as a loco shed, but there is one, in a tree-lined siding beyond the station. Just outside the mouth of this shed is the Portakabin serving as the classroom for the "footplate awareness" courses the railway has run for the past two years. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is the preserved steam line that conforms most closely to the rural branch line idyll depicted in stories such as The Railway Children or The Titfield Thunderbolt, and the northern terminus at Grosmont in the Esk valley is the prettiest of all the stops. When there are no trains in the station you hear only the sussuration of the Esk, or the occasional dinging of a bell in the signal box. It is strange to discover in this somnolent context such a gritty thing as a loco shed, but there is one, in a tree-lined siding beyond the station.

Just outside the mouth of this shed is the Portakabin serving as the classroom for the "footplate awareness" courses the railway has run for the past two years. It's a bit unsettling to enter this shed on a bright sunny morning. There are intimidating volumes on the bookshelves with titles like The Efficient Use of Steam and models to show the workings of bits of engines. When our instructor, a gangly, deeply capable-looking ex-BR driver called Keith Gays arrived, I felt the need to point out that I was not at all technically minded. Well, maybe I underestimated myself, or perhaps Keith Gays is just much more lucid than my old physics teacher, but within 10 minutes I was pretty clear on the basic workings of a steam engine – a subject on which I'd always been slightly evasive when asked by my two young sons.On the first day of the course, we alternated between theoretical sessions in the Portakabin, and reality as exemplified by the various locos stabled in the shed – full of whistling, twinkly-eyed blokes Note that I say "stabled" and not "parked". After a morning in the company of Keith Gays, I and the other three course attendees were beginning to get our vocabulary right. There's much equine language around engines, and they are often referred to as "she", although terminology quickly becomes less chivalrous where an engine is hard to operate. I asked how I should refer to one little tank engine and Keith just shrugged and said, "the green bastard".That afternoon we lit the fire in the engine we would be driving the next day, a BR Class Four, compellingly named The Green Knight.